How To Get Paying Customers Before Launching Your Product

How To Get Paying Customers Before Launching Your Product

Most of the time the main problem that worries startup is that they are scared that they won’t get any sales. Without revenue a startup is unable to take their venture to the next level. What if your startup can generate revenue and get paying customers before the launch date? Wouldn’t that be awesome and wouldn’t that put all your worries aside? Here are some tips to help you increase your chance of having paying customers before your launch.

1. Have A Demo

Seriously, have a demo ready when presented to a potential customer. Human beings love tangible and valuable assets. Ideas are all over the place and actions speak louder than words. For example if your startup is creating a mp3 player app that plays music directly from Youtube, then you have to show your potential customers your app. Show them anything you got, even if it’s a basic prototype and enhance it with your sales skills. Load up a song from Youtube that they like and have them listen to it.

2. Don’t keep it a secret

Like I mentioned above, ideas are all over the place. You are eventually going to have to tell everyone right? Once you have a few paying customers, those paying customers might tell their friends about your product and those friends might tell their other friends. The word of mouth spreads quickly. If your product is solving a problem, eventually someone will run into that problem and locate you. In addition to that, you can gain early feedbacks from people by telling them about your product. It’s a free survey!

3. Find the people with the problem

If your product is solving a problem, locate that niche group of people who are experiencing the same problem and reach out to them. For example, your startup is making a simple and straight forward CRM system to help business track their expenses and keep up with their clients. You should be attending all the small business meeting on meetup.com or attend all the local chamber of commerce events and meet these small business owners.

4. Turn Their Pain Into Your Gain

Now that you’re at these small business meets, it’s time to turn their pain into your gain. Like I mentioned in my sales article, listen, listen, and listen to your customer. Absorb as many information about their pain as you can and fire them back at him with your gain. Using the CRM example from above, let’s say the business owner is telling you that he hates salesforce because it’s too complicated and does too many things. Then you could tell him about how simple your startup’s product is and how you guys focus on a few functions only to make it the best for small business owners.

5. Let everyone know what you’re doing

Tell everyone from the very beginning what you are doing and what you are creating. Keep everyone updated with your progress. This way everyone will remember you over throughout your production phrase and will refer you to their friends if needed. The worse scenario is not having anyone know you when your product launches. If you can create hype before the launch, you can get a lot of paying customers or inquiries before you launch your product.

6. Get Beta Testers

This strategy is constantly used by top gaming companies. It’s extremely useful because think about it, what’s better than having a list of people that have a strong understand of your product and have been a regular user since beta on the day of your launch? If it is a paid product, then you already have paying customers! Beta testers will continue to use your product and continue to provide you with product feedbacks. Take this as your advantage and launch a beta testing link, you could collect a bunch of emails along the way as well.

7. Dig Through Your Network

You don’t have to necessary sell to your friends, instead you could have them refer you to someone they work for. Maybe one of your friends happen to work for a small business and your friend might be kind enough to pass your word. Dig through your entire network to find the right paying customers. For example if you see that one of your friend’s dad runs a side car tinting business, try to talk him into telling his dad about your product. Don’t feel bad because your actually making his dad’s life easier with your product and your bringing value in for everyone.